Sadness and Sorrow
by Written Parody
Summary: Zuko finally knows where his mother is, but nobody will let him go after her becuase of the danger. And so he calls upon Katara's help and together they go on a rescue mission. But the heartache that comes this time cannot be healed... or can it? Zutara


This is a oneshot I wrote a long time ago after I saw the picture "Zutara-Sadness and Sorrow" by GreenifyME on deviantART. Seriously, the picture is a million times better than this fic. A MILLION. greenifyme. deviantart .com/art/Zutara-Sadness-and-Sorrow-89291525 But Ashra-Blitzgeschwind asked me to put this on too, so here it is.

Set after the war, obviously. Please excuse the lameness and go and check out the artwork, PLEASE. It's amazing and heart wrenching and… everything a picture should be.

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Twilight had settled over the Fire Nation and almost everybody was beginning to get ready for night. Shops were either opening or closing, depending on their wares, and children were being called in from their play while older people sat outside and watched the stars come out. In an unused room in the Fire Nation palace, however, somebody paced, tensed up and nowhere near ready to wind down. If anybody had entered the room suspicion would have been aroused: why on earth was their Firelord pacing in an abandoned room wearing black commoner's clothes? But nobody disturbed Zuko in his pacing until it was dark. Then the door creaked open and a woman stepped in. She too was wearing black clothes but the sight of Zuko did not seem to cause her suspicion.

"I never thought I'd see you wear those again," she commented, causing Zuko to turn towards her.

"If only they weren't necessary," he muttered. "Who ever heard of the Firelord having to dress up like a ninja in order to get some place? It's preposterous."

"You know they have good reason for what they're doing," she replied softly. "Your uncle told me that those guards there listen to nobody but Ozai and even then…" She broke off, suddenly biting her lip. "Are you sure about this? Maybe you should listen to Iroh and wait…"

"How can I wait?" he whispered, staring at her with amber eyes that were ablaze with some emotion.

She seemed to understand what he was feeling because she nodded, her expression telling him she would not try and talk him out of it again.

"What happens if Iroh decides to check up on you? I know he's all calm and jolly but I've seen him angry once before and it wasn't pretty."

"You think he'd get really angry at me?" Zuko's mouth was twitching with a smile.

"I _know _he will. He loves you, Zuko. And as much as he will probably understand why you're going, he will do everything to try and stop you. And perhaps punish you when you get back, Firelord or not."

"I know… But Toph's covering for me. He's putty in her capable hands. And if charm doesn't work, she'll use brute force." His mouth twitched even more.

"What does she get out of it? I doubt even you could get her to do you such a huge favour without payment."

Zuko grimaced somewhat.

"I told her we'd discuss it when I got back. I have a sinking feeling I know what she's going to demand, though: there's only one thing on her mind these days."

"Mai's head on a platter," Katara realized.

Zuko winced at the name but nodded. When Mai had walked out on him the Earthbender had still been relatively calm, only calling her vulgar names and predicting equally as vulgar things happening to her. But then she had found out _why _Mai had left Zuko: she had become _bored._ It had taken seventeen guards and Aang to hold her down. Zuko had managed to convince her not to charge after the black-haired woman, but Toph was still itching for revenge. _Nobody _messed with Toph Bei Fong and messing with her family was as good as, if not worse than, messing directly with her.

"Alright, it's dark enough. Appa is at the small eastern gate," Katara told him, slipping a black piece of material over her mouth and starting towards the door.

"Hey, Katara?" She turned back towards him and found that his face was flushed slightly in his embarrassment; he wasn't very good at this sort of thing. "Thank you. For getting Appa, for lying to your family, for coming out here tonight to help me even when you could… You could get seriously hurt…"

Even though he could only see her eyes, he could tell she smiled at him.

"You donned ninja clothes to help me find out about my mother. I'm just returning the favour."

The island beneath them was large but desolate. In the little light that managed to filter through the many dark clouds that cloaked the sky, the only things enduring from the storm that had made Katara work overtime to keep them dry, the expanse of land looked sinister. They left Appa on a small beach that was hidden from view on two sides by sheer cliff. It was the only blind spot the island had: the only thing for miles was the great stone tower that dominated the middle of the sandy place. This made finding where Ursa was easy, but hiding from her guards difficult.

"They are ruthless killers, my nephew. They obey Ozai's one law that they cannot harm your mother only because he lets them rule themselves. That is why, until we are sure your father is telling the truth she is there, I cannot permit you to go there. It is simply too dangerous."

Shaking his uncle's words from his head Zuko ran at a crouch towards the tower, Katara at his side. Reaching the entrance to the tower, the five guards were swiftly and silently taken out by an efficient water whip and a few precise jabs to the back of the neck that Zuko had learned from Ty Lee. Inside they were met at once with a towering staircase. Zuko silently pointed upwards, telling Katara that was where Ozai had said his mother was.

The two loped silently up the stairs, a stench of rotting filling their nostrils almost at once. Zuko looked at the rotting, dirty place with disgust. It had taken him weeks to get the information of his mother's whereabouts from his father and now that he was finally seeing the place his mother had been forced to stay in for all those years rage welled up inside of him. Reaching the top of the stairs, he stopped stock still, his eyes unwavering upon the closed door.

My mother is behind those doors…

"Three minutes," Katara whispered to him. "That's all we have before we're discovered."

He only nodded in return. His heart in his mouth, thudding like a trapped bird, he stepped forward and gently pushed open the door. He saw nothing of what the room beyond looked like; his eyes were only interested in the small bed and the figure that lay on it. Her face was exactly like he remembered it, if a little more lined. Her face looked peaceful as she lay there, her hands folded over her chest. She looked exactly like she had all those times before when he had found her asleep in the palace. Except she wasn't, this time. Because a part of his frozen mind and thudding heart couldn't believe his sight alone he walked forwards as if in a daze, his hand reaching out and touching her cheek. It was cold and hard; she'd been dead for about a day.

He heard Katara utter a soft sound he'd never heard before; it tore his already broken heart into more pieces. He couldn't move, couldn't tear his eyes away from her face, the dress he remembered so well…

"Zuko, we have to leave!" Katara hissed.

He didn't move. He could barely remember how to breathe. A hand grabbed his elbow and he barely noticed, even when it started tugging him.

"We have to leave! They're coming!"

He stared at Katara with a blank face, not registering anything she said. Her face crumpled at his expression, at the nothingness in his eyes, but she continued to tug at him.

"For your uncle," she pleaded. "For Iroh and Toph and-"

He seemed to wake up from a trance and suddenly _he _was the one pulling _her_. Down the stairs they went, not as quietly as they could because of their haste. They could hear shouts as the unconscious guards were found at the gate. Zuko flung out his arm, stopping her as people ran just past the bend in the stairs they perched at. When the only noise seemed to be coming from the weapon room, which was on the other side of the tower, they made a break for it. They jumped over the fallen guards and sprinted down towards the safe little beach. A shout was heard behind them and they whirled to see four guards after them. By the colour of their belts Katara could tell they were only rookies. After spending several minutes fighting them off and making sure they could not go for help until her and Zuko were far away, however, she was glad of their rank; if they were that good she _really _didn't want to meet the masters.

Zuko had fought with her with precision and skill, but she could tell something was wrong. His bending was just movements whereas usually the fire seemed to come out of his very soul. His emptiness worried her, but his face was completely calm as they left the last of their pursuers in a heap, fired their flares towards the other side of the island to confuse the rest of the guards, and headed back towards the beach. As soon as they reached the sea Katara summoned some of its water and healed her cuts and bruises. She turned to Zuko, intending to do the same, but found him standing, rigid, in front of her. She opened her mouth to call to him, but something stopped her. For a while longer he stood there, back towards her, seemingly breathing with difficulty. Then, without a shred of warning, he leapt forwards. Without so much as a gasp he began to bend, flinging fistfuls of fire at the sand, the cliff, the water, the air just in front of his face. He threw all his energy into the bending, all his emotion, all his hurt. Katara could only watch in a sort of horrified awe.

Suddenly he crumpled to the sand, one hand shakily rising to cover his eyes. A noise that Katara had never heard him utter escaped his lips and with a sinking, wrenching heart Katara realized he was crying. No, not simply crying; he was sobbing. Great sobs that wrenched his whole body as tears ran like rivers down his face. Zuko, arrogant, proud, strong, stubborn Zuko, was weeping his heart out into the sand.

Without conscious thought to do so, Katara moved forward and fell to her knees beside him. Her hand found its way to his back by its own accord, making soothing little circles as she tried to calm him, tried to make him turn back into the Zuko that couldn't be touched. As another wretched noise escaped him the patting did not seem to be enough any more, and she moved her other arm towards his shoulder, intending to hug him, to hold him like the pure instinct of her mind was screaming at her to do. Halfway there, however, her arm stopped. It was still Zuko; he wouldn't want her to hug him, he wouldn't want-

A small gasp escaped her as he turned towards her and buried his head in her chest, gripping the back of her clothes with shaking hands. His movement had caused the arm that she had been moving to hug him to be slung across his shoulder, and she gripped that shoulder as her other hand moved again across his back to form a hold that was an embrace, but still something the arrogant Zuko would allow. His fingers lost their grip on her clothes but his hand stayed there as he continued to sob, his teeth bared in utter agony, soaking her front as she slipped her chin from the top of his head and pressing her face to the scarred side of his. She felt like she needed to say something, _anything _to make it better, but what could possibly make this any better at all?

She knew from experience what it felt like, what he was going through. She swallowed and lifted her face to look at the sky. She couldn't cry now. But as Zuko's terrible, heart-crushing anguish poured out of him her own heart couldn't help but remember when it had been her feeling those things. As Zuko trembled in her arms, she recalled the way her world had ended the day she had seen her own mother dead. The stench of blood came back to her as if she were smelling it then and, unable to stop them, tears started welling up in her eyes.

A sob escaped her at the same time he sobbed, and she closed her eyes, letting the tears cascade down her own face as her hand left his shoulder and instead rested on his hair. She grieved not so much for her own mother; she had been healed of most of the gaping wound. Instead she grieved for the sobbing boy in her arms, feeling his ache because she had once felt it too. She cried for him and how much he had already lost and how the universe seemed to just take from him. She cried out of fear that one of the strongest people she knew was breaking down before her.

She stopped her tears while he was still letting his out for what, she realized, must be one of the first times in his life: she was sure Zuko crying happened about as often as an eclipse. When she opened her eyes brilliance met her; a rainbow had started to edge across the sky. She watched it, letting its light dry the rest of the tears on her face as she held the sobbing teen. There was always a rainbow at the end of a storm.

Finally he quietened beneath her, his shaking ceasing, his breath becoming easier. A new stiffness entered his shoulders and it took Katara a while to realize what it meant.

"Crying does not make you weak," she told him firmly, trying to force his embarrassment away.

"No," Zuko told her in a hollow voice. "I _am _just weak."

The Waterbender just stared in stupefaction. Out of all the things she had ever called Zuko in her life, weak had never been one of them.

"I'm weak just like my father said. Too weak to fight as well as Azula, too weak to face him, too weak to capture the Avatar, too weak to make the right decision at Ba Sing Se, too weak to… To weak to save her…"

"Zuko…"

He ripped out from under her, standing up in one fluid movement. She followed suit, her common sense telling her that being on the ground at his feet when he looked like that was not a good idea.

"One day," he whispered to her in a ragged voice. "If I had only been _one day _sooner… If I had been spineless for one less day I…" He stared at her with wild eyes more vulnerable then she had ever seen them. "I could have… If I'd just…"

Her face suddenly hardened and her hands shot out. But instead of slapping him, they ripped open the top of his shirt. He blinked at her in astonishment, but she ignored him.

"You see this?" she asked him, pointing at the star-shaped scar from Azula's lightning. "You got this when you took a lightning bolt for me. A _lightning bolt. _You could have died, or you could have easily allowed me to fight with you from the beginning. But you wanted to protect me, to indirectly protect Aang and the rest of us. That is not weakness, Zuko. It's the utter opposite."

"But my mother-"

"Would be unbelievably proud of you," she interrupted him. "If she had been alive in that room, she would have hugged you hard and then grabbed you by the shoulders, looked you in they eyes and told you how incredibly proud she was. Through everything you never stopped fighting for what you thought was right. Yes, you made mistakes; everybody does. But you, Zuko, never stopped fighting. Never gave up, never let you fire die. And that is what makes you one of the strongest people I know. In fact," she added quietly. "I'll bet she's saying those things in the Spirit World right now."

They stared at each other, amber eyes to blue, for what seemed like a long time. Tears leaked out of Zuko's good eye, but he made no move to dry them. He read all her pain about her own mother in those expanses of blue, and she let him and told him all she could.

"I… I need you to stop me. From going back there and… I need you to stop me like you stopped yourself from killing Yon Rha."

"I don't really know how I did that," she replied slowly, thinking about it. "I guess…" Realization was beginning to dawn on her. "I guess it was because you were there to help. I drew my strength from the fire inside you."

"I have no fire left," he said in a raw voice.

"That's ok," she said with a weak smile. "This time you can draw your strength from me.

As if wanting to confirm her words the rainbow broke through even more of the clouds, a shattering brilliance of colour against the ugly grey.

"What about when you leave me?" _Just like Mai_

I'm not Mai. "I never will."

Her hand reached out and slipped into his, gripping it tightly while the rainbow chased away the rest of the storm.


End file.
